


watching the words fall from my lips

by Vennat



Category: Camp Camp (Web Series)
Genre: Angst, Child Neglect, David Acting as Max's Parental Figure | Dadvid (Camp Camp), Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Kinda, Max (Camp Camp) Deserves Better, Max (Camp Camp) Gets A Hug, Sickfic, Truth Serum, and that man should be maxs dad, and u think i won't write fic about it??, david should be allowed to kill a man, just once, roosterteeth ur just gonna make truth serums an in universe reality
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-01
Updated: 2020-10-01
Packaged: 2021-03-07 20:42:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,110
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26733793
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vennat/pseuds/Vennat
Summary: Max drinks Neil's truth serum.David considers murder and various other crimes.
Relationships: David & Max (Camp Camp), Max & Science Camp Neil & Nikki (Camp Camp)
Comments: 23
Kudos: 315





	watching the words fall from my lips

**Author's Note:**

> title from "the word of your body" from spring awakening  
> ug hey I've been in the cc fandom for a week and i would die for parent max & David. 
> 
> also, cia, this is all your fault. enabler!!!!!!!
> 
> you too, dearestspaghetti. you didn't help.

“Neil,” says Nikki, hands tucked behind her back. Her face is that of a picturesque look of innocence. Neil would know better than almost anyone that it’s faked, considering that he was there when Max taught her how to perfect that look. “Did Campbell drink  _ all  _ of your truth serum?”

Neil looks at her suspiciously. 

“No. Why do you ask?” 

“No reason!” She says brightly. “I need to go do something completely unrelated right now, soooo… see you later!” 

Neil watched her walk away and debated whether he should do anything to stop… whatever that was. On the one hand, Nikki with no Neil and/or Max (ie; the planners) was pure chaos. On the other hand, convincing Nikki without Max’s help…

Neil turned back to his attempt at a potato powered computer. 

_________________

Max was poking at his breakfast potatoes. Neil, across from him, was fiddling with wires, having already shoved his potatoes off onto Nurf. 

“Where’s Nikki?” Max asked Neil, and the boy across from him shrugged. Max looked to his right, towards where the rest of the camp was scattered about, and slowly scanned the room for his teal-haired friend. After a few seconds, Max turned back to Neil and bit down on a yelp of surprise when he saw Nikki seated next to Neil, as casual and normal as if she’d been there the whole time. 

“Hey, Max.” She said, feet  _ thump-thumping  _ as she swung them back and forth into the bench underneath her. 

“Where’ve you been?” Max asked, curious what could have kept his ravenous friend away from a meal. Nikki cracked a sly grin and leaned in. 

“Why, my esteemed colleague, I was on a heist.” She reached into her overalls and pulled out three Capri Moon pouches. Neil dropped his wires, and he and Max both leaned in. “Our captors have been hiding the last vestiges of these in their cabins.” Nikki confided, sliding each of them a pouch. 

The three of them immediately stabbed their pouches with straws (Nikki through the bottom, the “cool way”) and slurped thirstily. It was a well-known fact that Capri Moons could only be enjoyed if drunk all at once.

Bounty consumed in a matter of seconds, Max barely had time to consider why it burned on the way down. It  _ had  _ been in Nikki’s overalls, and likely in the counselor’s uncooled cabin before that, so it wasn’t all that strange anyways. At least that’s what Max told himself, clearing his throat to try and get rid of the burning sensation. 

They all stuffed the remnants of their transgressions into their pockets before David, who was standing up from his seat, could see. 

“All right, good morning Campers!” David’s enthusiasm- at any time of the day, but especially this early- was always nauseating, but this was a little much, even for Max. He swallowed hard, gently placing his hand against his churning stomach. “I’ve got a wonderful day of activities planned for you all!”

Max blinked once, twice, and couldn’t seem to connect his brain to the fact that it was probably bad that the world was swimming in front of him. 

_________

“Lastly, we’ll split up into groups, and--”

“I’m tired.” came Max’s voice, sounding thick and exhausted. David stopped speaking, looking over to where the young boy was sitting, staring off into space. Before David could come up with anything to say- surprised as he was at the surly boy interrupting in such a non-chaotic way- Neil touched Max’s arm, frowning, and the boy jerked away, listing sideways in his seat before catching himself with clumsy arms. 

“Don’t touch me!” he snapped, before shrinking down. “Sorry, sorry, I’m sorry.” 

David blinked in surprise at the apology. Max  _ never  _ apologized unless it was important. 

“Max,” he said, striding quickly over to his table. “What’s wrong, buddy?”

The boy blinked at him with a blurry gaze. 

“My stomach. I’m… everything's foggy.” Nikki gasped, weaseling her way in front of David. 

“It’s working!” she cried, and, oblivious to the glance David shot her, bounced in place in front of Max. 

“Tell me your deepest secrets, Max, so that I may enact my revenge! Reveal all to me! Your secrets, tell me!” She demanded, a note of vicious excitement in her voice. 

“Mr. Honeynuts,” Max mumbled without preamble, shaking his head side to side as if to clear it. “My bear. He protects me.” 

Nikki cackled. 

“And David! David, tell me, I bet you love him and the camp, and you’re just a big fat liar.”

“David, David is… good. Safe. Camp is home, I love it here.” Nikki could’ve lit up a room with how bright she was beaming. Max, on the other hand, was frowning, rubbing at his throat. 

“Why am I--” Nikki cut him off again. 

“Tell me another secret, Max.” She said, leaning in and getting inches from his face. 

“My Dad hi--” Max replied instantly, before shoving his hands over his mouth. David could see his jaw working as he spoke despite his hands covering his face. Max looked up to meet his eyes, and the pure fear there sent a bolt of terror down David’s spine. 

“Out of the way, Nikki.” He said, lifting her away from Max. She immediately sunk her teeth into his arm, almost on instinct, and David dropped her in surprise (at this point she’d bitten him so many times he didn’t even know why he was still so surprised). Nikki lunged forward, pulling Max’s arms away from his face. 

“My Dad hits me. He hates me, and he hurts me because he wishes I wasn’t there, he--” Max covered his face again, and to David’s ever-growing horror his eyes filled with tears. David, Gwen (who had stepped closer once she realized something was going on), Nikki, and Neil were the only ones who had heard what Max had said, and they were all frozen in shock for a minute before Gwen demanded “What the fuck is wrong with him?”

“I gave him the rest of Neil’s truth serum,” Nikki whispers in horror. Neil whips around to face her. 

“The  _ rest of it?  _ You saw how much it took to effect Campbell, and he’s three times Max’s size!”

“I’m sorry!” Nikki wails, tears filling her eyes. “Max stole my dessert last night, I just wanted something stupid to hold over his head for payback! I-- I didn’t know his dad--” Nikki cuts herself off, and Gwen sighs, rubbing a hand down her face. She scoops Nikki over one shoulder, and Neil over the other, before turning to David. 

“I’ll deal with them and the others. You just worry about Max, ok?” She says, giving a wan smile and a last concerned glance to Max before she leaves, calling out for the other campers to follow her. David watches as they troupe out behind her, sending his best reassuring smile to those that glance over to him and Max in concern.

When the door has closed behind the last camper, David shifts his focus back to his surliest charge and finds that Max is still mumbling into his sleeve, rocking back and forth on the edge of the bench. 

“Max,” David says, kneeling in front of the younger boy. The boy doesn’t react, so David gently sets his hand on the boy's shoulder. The reaction is instantaneous, Max jerks away from him, back hitting the table behind him. His arms go up, shielding his face, and leaving his mouth uncovered.

“Oh god, please don’t hurt me please god I don’t want to go back home I want to stay here, I’m so scared I can’t go back he’ll kill me if I could just keep my goddamn mouth shut he wouldn’t need to--”

“Max,” David says, just a little louder, and cursing himself for not asking Max first if he could touch him. The serum obviously doesn’t agree with him, and he can’t seem to stop talking, so David does his best not to listen. For Max’s sake, and the fact that if he listens too closely he may not be able to stop himself from tracking down Max’s parents and doing… un-nice things to them. “Buddy, please look at me. You drank some… bad stuff, you gotta let me help you.”

“David,” Max says, desperate. He clenches his hands in his lap, but David can see they’re shaking. There’s a sheen to his brow and eyes that tells David he is feverish, and the flush to his cheeks only confirms that. “ _ David _ ,” Max says again.

“I’m right here bud.”

Max sobs, hiccuping with the force of it and falls forward. David catches him and wraps his arms around him, holding him close and letting Max bury his tears in his neckerchief. David stands, and Max clings to him.

Something swells in his chest, thick and suffocating, and David squeezes his arms around Max. This kid has had too much done to him, David already knew that when he read Max’s empty file and saw the awestruck look on his face when he and Gwen did something as simple as buying him a pizza. When he saw the brash, angry exterior, hiding a carefully soft interior that cared, and cared, and cared but was too afraid to ever admit it. 

David walked to the counselor's cabin, and against his chest, he could feel it as Max’s sobs died down to steady, slow breathing. Quietly, David pulled open the door to his and Gwen’s cabin and took two steps across the small room to his bed. Peeling back the covers, David gently dislodged Max from his shoulder, settling him into the bed and pulling the covers up to his chin. After making sure Max was thoroughly tucked in, David left the cabin. He would just pop over to Max’s cabin real quick and grab Mr. Honeynuts for him. David figured the mortification of someone acknowledging Max’s love for his stuffed animal would be outweighed by the comfort the teddy would bring him.

David had never been inside Max’s tent. He knew which one was his, of course, but he and Gwen respected the privacy of each of their campers and had never entered the space.

It was depressing. It was obvious whose side was whose. On the one side, Neil’s cot was a sloppy mess of discarded pajamas and a rumpled bed. At the foot of his bed was a trunk with a stack of letters on top. On the tent wall next to his bed there were a bunch of pictures of Neil and his parents, though each photo contained either his mom or dad. 

Max’s side of the tent, however, made it look like Neil didn’t even have a tent-mate. 

There were no pictures, no letters. His bed was made with tight, military precision, and the trunk at the end of his bed was shut. David sighed, and mentally asked Max to forgive him for going through his things. 

The inside of his trunk is just as barren as his side of the tent. Inside the trunk, there is a stack of three carefully folded hoodies exactly like the one Max is wearing right now, on top of that a stack of the yellow shirts Max wears under the hoodies, and on top of those is a perfectly folded Camp Campbell t-shirt and neckerchief, the very same ones Max claimed he would be burning when they handed them out mid-summer. David smiles, but it falls quickly when he realizes the only other item in Max’s trunk is Mr. Honeynuts. 

The kid is ten years old, and he doesn’t have a single thing in his trunk besides clothes and his teddy bear. No letters from parents, no phone numbers taped to the lid, no pictures of his family…  _ nothing. _

Max’s tiny, scared voice,  _ I don’t want to go back home I want to stay here-- _

David breathes deliberately in, then out, and grabs Max’s teddy. There is a sleeping kid who will be terrified when he wakes up, and David will do everything in his power to be there to comfort him. Up to and including setting a hyped-up-on-sugar Nikki on Max’s parents, and getting some of Campbell’s not-entirely-legal contacts to put Max in his care if he has to.

That small wavering voice saying his name, crying in his arms. That horrible stifling feeling when Max said with such surety, “They don’t care.” The elated feeling of seeing that smile on his face, knowing that he was  _ happy.  _

David stands, striding back to his cabin, to his kid. 

He will do  _ whatever  _ it takes to see that smile again.

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> please spare some kudos for a poor, depressed old man. maybe even a comment?? :D
> 
> if u came from one of my other fics,,, u didn't see this
> 
> twit: elricsbnha  
> tumblr: v-ennat


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